David-Horodok Business from the 19th Century to World War I

Lumber and River Transport

After the Napoleonic war
ended in 1812, the economic development of Polesye improved somewhat.
Victorious Russia became the great power of Eastern Europe and gradually began
to rebuild its lands. Russia’s attention was focused primarily on its
southwest. In the Ukraine new colonies were founded, a fleet of ships for the
Black Sea was built, and railroad tracks were laid. The nearest source of
timber for all this construction was Polesye. A broad-based business developed
with the Ukraine. This of course affected David-Horodok, which lay by the Horin
River and was in the center of the forest region. In the second half of the
19th century a merchant class developed in David-Horodok for lumber production
and so-called “watermen,” or those who plied the rivers.

The David-Horodok lumber
merchants were with few exceptions not wealthy, but together with the watermen
they markedly improved the lumber business. Lumber dealing was not simple. It
demanded much knowledge and skill. Buying the raw material required expert
examination of the wood’s quality, calculating precisely how it could be
transported, worked, etc.

The watermen used berlinis or berlinchikas, which were the chief means of transportation
on water. In bygone days they used baidakis,
which were wide, heavy boats carrying up to 650 tons. However baidakis were not very convenient and by
the middle of the 19th century were no longer in use. They had been replaced by
barges and berlinis.

The barges were usually
open and had the following dimensions: 15-19 sajen[1] [35-44 yards] long, 7-8 arshin[2] [7.5-8.5 yards] wide, and 24-28 virshak[3] [6-7 feet] high. They carried a load of
about 4000-5000 pood[4][about 80 tons]. The barges were mostly used
for carrying firewood and boards.

The berlinis were covered and very large:
17-20 sajen [40-46.7 yards] long,
3 sajen [7 feet] wide, and 2 arshin [6.5 feet] high. They were divided
into three or four sections in which they transported a variety of goods. Such
a berlini required as many as 18
workers plus a captain and carried between 800-1140 tons.

In spring they were loaded
mostly with firewood or other wood material, and went downstream as far as Kiev
and in recent times as far as Yekaterinoslav.[5] A trip downstream from David-Horodok to
Kiev would take, in normal circumstances, two weeks. In the summer the berlinis would work on the banks of the
Dnieper hauling various loads from one point to another. In the fall season
they would load up with a variety of food items from the rich Ukraine, or with
salt, and go upstream to David-Horodok. The return trip would take about 40
days. Not uncommonly winter would come early and the watermen would be forced
to remain somewhere along the route. In such a case they were understandably
far from their home and source of winter income.

This was not an easy
business. The men were separated from home 8-9 months of the year. They were
dependent on weather conditions such as winds, rain and ice, on water depth in
the rivers, etc. The business required great skill and knowledge.[6]

Until World War I this
business was a major source of income for the towns along the banks of the
rivers. It was a multifaceted business with brokers, agents and warehouses. The
larger merchants bought the material and sold the products, while the smaller
businessmen earned their incomes through transport.

In this regard, it is worth
mentioning the family Bragman of David-Horodok, which had at the end of the
19th century a large business. The Bragmans owned many of their own berlinis and from time to time would make
deals with outsiders to transport merchandise for them. They had warehouses in
many places. Later they had their own steamship called the Montefiore. They had agents all along the
way from Pinsk to Yekaterinoslav who would buy and sell for them, hire workers
for them, procure food for the workers, and determine the prices of produce,
sugar, salt, etc. The agents also investigated the condition of wood reserves
in the Ukraine. This was a large firm with wide-ranging interests and thereby
enjoyed boundless credit and trust.

The water business also
created a shipbuilding industry in David-Horodok from which many Jews and
Christians earned their livelihood. A geographer from the University of Lemberg
reported that the 1910 shipbuilding industry of the Ukraine was located chiefly
in Polesye--“in Mozyr, Petrivic, Balazevichi on the Pripyat and particularly
David-Horodok on the Horin.”[7]

The wood merchants and
water-men had a great impact on the development of the town, especially the
youth. The elders endeavored to give their children not only a Jewish education
but also a broad secular education as was required by their businesses.

From an interview with Anne
Zemmol

I was born in David-Horodok
on April 15, 1903 according to my passport, although to tell you the truth,
parents in Europe didn’t really know how old their children were. My name in
Europe was Nechama Eisenberg. My father was Label Eisenberg and my mother was
Esther Margolin; they had nine children.

My Zeyde Beryl had a barge. He used to import
and export. He took things from David-Horodok and went to Vetrioslav, Kiev, and
then came back in fall. Go in spring and come back in fall.

My father was in the barge
business too. My father went to Katerynoslav[8] once. At that time it was called
Katerynoslav; I don’t know what they call it now. He came home with the barge
and hit something in the river-- something like a heel that stuck up, maybe a
sandbar; I don’t know what you call it in English.[9] Anyway, he hit it and the barge broke down.
It sank, but not all the way. He could still stand on the top. But it wasn’t
insured so when he came home he didn’t have any money. That time he was a young
man, only thirty-eight years old. And he had nine children. We were four girls.
My mother only had a little store near the marketplace. See, in the town on the
marketplace they built up a big church and then they fenced around the church.
And in the back were the stores. My mother had a store there.[10]

My father wanted to go to
the border around Kiev and open up a store and when the girls got older they
would work in the store. But my mother didn’t want it. She said, “Go to
America. You have four daughters; dowry you don’t have for them. Who they
gonna’ marry here? They’re gonna’ marry expressmen [longshoremen - men who load
and unload the barges]. They’ll have a better future to go to America,” which
was true. So my father went to America with Max, the oldest son. Then my father
sent us an affidavit so we could come to America too, and we sold the house,
but the war broke out and we were small children and my grandmother, my Bubbe
Shaindel, she wouldn’t let us go. So we moved in with my Grandfather Beryl and
we stayed put.

Retail Shops

Shops were an important
part of David-Horodok life. Having a Christian population in David-Horodok
which purchased everything it needed from the Jews (the Horodtchukas were mostly merchants and
laborers), as well as having a large number of surrounding villages created
room for many shops in town. In time a large shopkeeper class developed. In
truth few became rich and without the help of the bank and credit unions, most
would not have been able to exist. The competition between the shops was
considerable. In such a manner they persevered, more or less.

Meat Business

Many families in
David-Horodok earned a living in the meat business. The town was surrounded by
farm country with many grassy meadows for pasture and the vicinity was rich in
herds of cattle and oxen. The butchers of David-Horodok would buy these cows
and oxen for the town’s needs as well as for export, especially to Warsaw.

Among David-Horodok
butchers were some larger merchants who traveled to the Ukraine, mainly to the
Poltava region, purchased a quantity of cattle and sent them to Warsaw. These
animals, along with their attendants went the entire way on foot. This was a
risky business because there were no standardized prices. The prices depended
on the supply and the bidding of the Warsaw merchants. Not infrequently the
profit on half a delivery of cattle sold one day would barely cover the loss on
the second half of the delivery sold the following day.

The great majority of
butchers were not involved in such business dealing. They were much poorer and
earned their bread only with great difficulty. Three to four days a week they
would search the local villages trying to find one animal to buy. Once they
bought it, bringing it home was not easy, and selling it involved them in
intense rivalry with their competitors. To make matters worse, not infrequently
an animal was found to be treyf
or unclean.

The meat business brought
much money into David-Horodok and contributed greatly to the economy of the
area, especially for the peasants. It also created the basis for the tanning
industry, which processed great quantities of hides in the region. From the
processed hides the shoemakers of David-Horodok produced boots which they sold
to the entire region. The meat business also produced tallow, which was used to
manufacture soap and candles.

Fish Business

The fish industry was very
important in David-Horodok, although not to the region in general, having
brought in only 3500 rubles to the District of Pinsk in 1910.[11] It was a source of income both to the
Christians, who were the fishermen, and to the merchants, who were Jewish. The
fish merchants did not bother with selling fish on the spot. That was done by
the fishermen themselves, the Christians. In the local trade, the fish
merchants only bought up the surplus fish which the town could not consume and
sent it to Warsaw. The normal business of the fish merchants was direct export
to larger cities.

There were six or seven
Jewish merchants who bargained for the right to purchase fish from Duke Radziwell’s
lakes. The Christians caught the fish and the Jewish merchants sent them to
Warsaw. This was not an easy business but it was profitable.

From interviews with Bessie Davidson, once Bossel
Eisenberg

Bessie’s parents, Razel and
David Eisenberg were one of the merchants who bargained each year for the right
to purchase fish from the nearby lakes owned by Duke Radziwell. During the
summer David and his youngest son Velvel would go to the lakes on Sunday and
return on Thursday, sleeping in open boats while they were away. At the lakes,
they hired a boat and peasant crew to catch fish, bringing the fish back to
their house in hired wagons. Both Velvel and David were away most of the
summer. According to Bessie, “The villagers were always nice to them while they
were away.” During the winter the lakes froze over.

Velvel helped his father by
doing the accounting. “He watched the fish being caught, and marked it down
whatever is.” If the fish were not biting, the pair could be away two weeks at
a time. After the fish were brought to David-Horodok, Razel packed them in ice
in long wooden boxes in the family dining room, bringing chopped ice in from
the ice house in back in a large bag. Then she shipped the fish by river to
large cities like Warsaw or Vilna, where they were sold.

“While my mother packed the
fish a man named Fishman sat in our house--all summer long, talking to her. He
had this big stomach and would sit at the dining room table and talk and talk.
He was a big kibitzer. He did
some kind of business with my mother about the fish. Maybe he hauled the fish
to the ships when she was done. He lived not far, on a gessl [sidestreet] off Olshonergas.”

Mostly during the fall,
business people from the large cities would visit the Eisenbergs to reconfirm
business relations for the next year. They often stayed with David and Razel.
The couple entertained them in the zalle or
parlor, which also had an extra bed. Razel would make tea in the samovar and
bake pastries. The Eisenbergs undertook the risk and expense of shipping the
fish. Merchants on the other end sold the fish, and then paid the Eisenbergs.
David was the principle contact with the outside world, and not only went to
the lakes but traveled occasionally to Kiev looking for business partners.

Many summer Sundays, when
the peasants who owned the boats came to David-Horodok to buy things in the
market, they stopped at David's house to visit. They brought large round loaves
of Russian black bread and small, solid blocks of lard. They would take a slab
of lard, slap it on the bread and eat it, washing it down with vodka provided
by the Eisenbergs. Razel kept a large supply on hand because “the peasants had
to have a little shmeer to keep
things working smoothly.” The peasants would sit in the parlor and drink vodka
for hours until they became very drunk. “Their faces got so red from the
drinking.” David drank along with them. Once he lost his temper violently and
started yelling at them. Bessie and her sister Sophie ran into the parlor and
pleaded with him in Yiddish to stop making such a scene because the peasants
would kill him. “He was a little Jew, a little guy. They could have picked him
up with one hand.” The peasants spoke only “peasant language” [Belarusan],so they didn't understand what the
girls were saying. However, the peasants were too drunk to care; besides they
already knew about David's temper. They just laughed at him and told him to
calm down. “Even though they were anti-Semitic, they thought my father was an
okay Jew. The rest were bad Jews.”

Along the side of the
Eisenberg back yard was a deep pit that was used to store ice for the family's
fish business. The pit was almost twice as deep as an American basement. It was
surrounded by wooden walls and covered with a wood shingle roof. Two doors were
cut into the wall, leading to ladders that took you to the bottom of the pit.
During the winter, the family bought large blocks of ice which the peasants cut
once the top of the river had frozen. These blocks, approximately 36” by 36”,
were delivered by the peasants on winter sleds. The peasants would lower the
ice blocks into the ice pit, and stack them in layers, with straw between each
layer. The pit would be filled to the doorway.

At the beginning of the
summer, all you had to do to get a chip of ice to suck was open the door and
stand on the wooden doorway. However, as the summer wore on, and the ice was
used up, you had to go further and further down the ladder to get ice, until by
the beginning of the next winter, all the ice was gone. Neighbors came during
the summer to get ice for sick relatives, and Razel always told them to take
what they needed, no charge. However, she did not let her children go into the
ice shack alone, because it was too dangerous. She was afraid they might fall
or freeze. Or they might drown. Naturally during the summer, a lot of unwanted
melting occurred, and Bessie’s mother would have to use a bucket to lift out
the water from the bottom of the pit and pour it outside onto the yard. “You
know, like you take water from a well.”

Teamsters

In David-Horodok there was
a large group of drivers who would go throughout the land with their wagons
from David-Horodok to Pinsk, Minsk, Vilna, Brody and Odessa. As in other towns
they were organized in David-Horodok into “companies,” and worked in
partnerships. Along with other Polesye teamsters they participated in the
opening of the Polesye railroad line in 1888.

(Incidentally it is
important to emphasize that the development of the railroads by-passed
David-Horodok to this day. To this day the town has no rail connection. The
nearest train station is at Lahkva to the northwest, 15.5 miles from
David-Horodok, and at Horin-Stolin to the southwest, over 19 miles from
David-Horodok.)

In 1898 a group of five
drivers organized and purchased a small steamboat called Vienna which shuttled back and forth
between David-Horodok and Nirtcha, a town at the confluence of the Horin and
the Pripyat rivers, delivering David-Horodok passengers to the large steamships
shuttling between Pinsk and Kiev. Not all the drivers were trustworthy enough
for this business and most of them abandoned the partnership. During the first
years the drivers who purchased the steamboat continued to work with horses in
the winter when the river was frozen. Gradually the business developed; the
partners set up another steamboat route to Stolin and Goryn, and finally
abandoned their previous vocation completely. Later Pinsker Jews joined the
partnership and a steamboat link was established between Pinsk and
David-Horodok.

World War I did not disturb
the steamboaters, and afterwards, when David-Horodok went over to Poland, the
owners succeeded in getting back the steamboats which had been left in Russian
waters. However, after WWI when the Ukraine was shut off from David-Horodok due
to the new Soviet-Polish border, development possibilities were reduced, and
there remained only the two cruise routes between David-Horodok and Stolin, and
David-Horodok and Pinsk. The continued existence of the steamboaters was made
possible by these two routes.

As automotive
transportation developed after WWI, a larger group of teamsters organized and
purchased an auto to work the route between David-Horodok and Goryn. This time,
however, the venture was unsuccessful. The two reasons were the rapid
deterioration of the auto because of the poor Polesye roads and the huge taxes
imposed by the government.

David-Horodok teamsters
were well organized. They were divided into two groups. The first group worked
in the town and transported goods arriving on the steamboats to businesses and
warehouses. The second group traveled by wagon to the train stations at Lakhva
and Stolin, and in winter traveled by sled to Pinsk. The teamsters all worked
in partnership, and divided up their earnings each week. It was not an easy way
to earn a living but with a few exceptions it was a respectable trade and a few
teamsters were even well-to-do.

Craftsmen

David-Horodok was a town
with many craftsmen who worked independently. There was no special item
produced that was characteristic of David-Horodok. However, because
David-Horodok had a population of 10,000 and was surrounded by many villages, a
variety of tradesmen earned a respectable living working for the populace.

The major trades of the
David-Horodok craftsmen until the outbreak of World War I were as follows:

1) Tailors, who were
divided into two categories: those who worked for the Christian population on
order or prepared finished products for shipment to the fairs in the town and
nearby villages, and those who fashioned finer things for the Jewish
population.

2) Shoemakers, who worked
only for the Jews and for a few Christians. The Christian population was
provided with boots chiefly by Christian shoemakers who sold their products not
only to the local Christians but also throughout the entire land.

3) Blacksmiths and
locksmiths who worked mainly for the peasant farmers. They would repair wagons,
forge plows and axes and make a variety of other tools for construction work in
the town.

4) Architects, carpenters,
bricklayers, glaziers, painters and roofers who were in construction work. They
were the greatest number of craftsmen.

5) Those engaged in
shipbuilding. Jews were found in this work but the majority were Christian.

There were a few Jews who
had two trades--one for the summer and one for the winter. Tradesmen also
spanned several economic strata. Some were quite well-to-do and others made
barely enough to exist on. The great majority, however, led a modest but secure
and respectable life.

From an interviews with Bessie Davidson

At the end of the street
where the Helmens’ lived, Boroch Daliorker, a shneider
[men’s tailor] lived. Poor tailors remade and patched the clothing of the poor
while tailors for the wealthy turned out new garments of expensive fabrics.
Boroch Daliorker tailored for the wealthy.

“Daliorker” in Russian
means “far away.” Baruch Dailioker was a slight man always running around. He
ran around like a chicken. He was very short, a bachelor. He was a very good
tailor and worked for the very rich. That time he charged more than anyone
else. He had a shop in the front of his house and several young men worked for
him.

From an interview with Ann Helman, once Hashke
Glassman

My husband Leo told me that
before Yom Kippur their family would get some shoes and clothes made for them,
and they used a tailor there called Baruch Dailioker. And he used to go running
with a stick all over the market and he made clothes. He used to hang around,
but a couple days before the holidays he would start working. And my husband
said he used to mark whether it was long or short. But then he would make one
pant’s leg shorter than the other anyways. Always. And the shoemaker always
made one shoe shorter than the other.

The above description of
the economic structure of David-Horodok until World War I shows us that the
town did not have any really wealthy men among the merchants nor any really
poor among the laborers. In general living standards were not high, but the
demands of the people were also not very great.

Summer in the town was
quiet. The majority of the village Christians were occupied in the fields and
the Horodtchukas were wandering.
The Jewish merchants were on the rivers. The tradesmen worked in the villages,
often repairing things. With the peasants busy in the fields, they had to go
where the work was. In such a manner, the town would stand still in the summer.

In the fall things began to
liven up. Fairs were held. Peasants brought their surplus produce to town and
purchased their needs for the winter. Berlinis
arrived from the Ukraine with flour, salt and a variety of food articles that
were sold in and around the town. Lumber merchants and watermen arrived to
reconfirm the arrangements of prior years and acquire new business. The Horodtchukas also returned before winter
and bought supplies. Winter was for them the season of marriage. All of this
revived the town and its business. If the winter was normal and the byways
(both water and land) established at the right time, the lumber industry would
be strongly revived and produce a great deal of income for the town.

This was the way
David-Horodok carried on a normal existence until the outbreak of World War I,
which disrupted these well-established living patterns.

Absence of Industry

A picture of developing
industry in David-Horodok is absent; this was largely true for all of Belarus.
Belarus’s economy relied mainly on the export of raw materials. Belarus
exported lumber, flax and honey, and imported grain, salt, herring, finished
products and a few luxuries such as wine and furs. Lumber was floated down to
the Baltic and Black Sea ports, while only 13 per cent of the annual cut went
to the country’s own mills. Most local industry consisted of small distilleries
on private estates, a tiny glass factory here, a textile workshop there. Only
in the Grodno region were there factories able to process 1.5 million pounds of
native wool. Before 1917, Bialystok, a city with a population of 50,000, was
the industrial center of the country. Although the total production of native
industries reached 98 million rubles in 1913, the per capita output hardly
exceeded 10 rubles, the equivalent of $5.00 at the time. On the eve on the 1917
Russian Revolution, there were 10,000 industrial enterprises employing together
fewer than 70,000 workers, thus averaging 6.56 workers per enterprise. In
European Russia as a whole, 1.43 per cent of the population was engaged in
industry; in Belarus the figure was only .5 per cent.[12]

Belarus was clearly no
incipient industrial powerhouse, which added to the difficulty our grandparents
had earning a living there. In 1897 there were 27 providers for every 100
persons in Russia as compared with 36 in the United States and only 24 in
Belarus.[13]As Bessie Davidson expressed it, “People
were poor because they didn’t have nothing to do.”

[6] In Rudnitsky, Ukraine, the Land and its People, p.
302-3,the difficulties were described in 1910 by a geographer at the University
of Lemberg:

Traffic on the Ukrainian waterways was, in former times, much more
important than at present, not only because of the lack of [other] convenient
pathways, but also because of the [waterways’] former greater length and
capacity.

“The Ukraine possesses almost no artificial waterways. The only ones in
existence--the Orginski Canal ... and the Dnieper-Bug Canal ... --were built
back in the days of Polish rule. They are antiquated, shallow and neglected, so
they can serve only occasionally, and then only for log-floating ... The most
important waterway of the Ukraine is the Dnieper system. The main river is
navigable in its entire Ukrainian section by the largest river vessels ... The
rapids section, however, as a result of the incomprehensible negligence of the
Russian Government is, to this day, accessible only to the smaller ships and
rafts, and then only for sailing downstream. The canals built by the Government
in the Porohi [from] 1843 to 1856 are so badly placed that navigation to this
day must still keep largely to the natural ancient “Cossack paths.” ...

Thus the rapids
hinder Dnieper navigation to this day, and not least for the reason that the
insurance companies will not insure vessels for the rapids section. For this
reason the river fleet of the Dnieper is separated into two parts [at
Yekaterinoslav]. Above the rapids in 1900, 208 steamboats and 1002 other ships,
and below the rapids 148 steamboats and 1203 other ships were plying.

[7] Rudnitsky, Ukraine,
the Land and its People, p. 284. Later on, on p. 318, he again
references David-Horodok. “Another important river port is Davidhorodok on the
mouth of the Horin, the people of which carry on ship-building and navigation
and engage in sausage-making and cheese-making.”

[8] Katerynoslav is yet another name for
Eketerinoslav or Dniepropetrovsk